Chapter Text
There is a moment in your life when everything changes. It doesn't seem like it's possible that one second could completely change your life. The minute your first child is born, your first kiss, the second your dreams come true- all of these prove otherwise. Life is full of surprises. They range from excitement over a surprise party to the pain and disappointment when a loved one passes away. The surprise will either change your life for the better or the worst. As humans, we tend to assume the worst of the situation placed in front of us. It becomes a difficulty to figure out how to survive the problem at hand. It no longer seems possible that you will survive, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. There will come a day when the pain won't be what's giving you the energy to get through the day. The smile on your face, while shaped with pain, will be authentic. That smile, shaped with your triumphs and tears, is the most beautiful of all. The surprise that seemed like a catastrophe might be a blessing in disguise, even if you don't see it at the time. Eventually, your life will fall into place. You'll end up exactly where you're supposed to be. Or, at least, that's what we're told at the time. We just have to wait it out.
It was fine. It was all fine.
Meredith could hear Alex's interny voice in the back of her head. "You've said that word so many times it doesn't even feel like a word anymore."
He wasn't wrong in the slightest. And that sad part was, when that had been said, she thought that Addison Montgomery popping in and stealing Derek was the worst thing that had ever happened. Ten years later, after holding a bomb, drowning in Seattle, a shooting, a plane crash, giving birth in an electric storm, and losing the love of her life and sneaking away to have his baby... Addison didn't seem so daunting to her.
Did she mention how her best friend George died, her other friend Izzie got cancer, her person left her for Switzerland, and her sister died under a plane? Death followed her; it was inevitable. It didn't scare her anymore.
She walked around the hospital, the hospital that bore her name, clutching her white jacket that also had her sister's name on it. It was a daily reminder of her kid sister that died way too soon. She didn't talk about it, she didn't talk about things. She didn't ask Alex if he was thinking about Lexie. She didn't ask Jackson if he ever wondered about where she was.
Meredith was back to being just a tad dark and twisty. Her husband and sister were both dead. Her person was gone. She felt like she had as an intern. It was all a bit hopeless. No matter what she did, she wasn't going to win the fight. That being said, she didn't know if she believed that her husband and sister were up in heaven drinking at a bar. Her sister was laying six feet under, or at least what was left of her after animals fought over her body. Her husband was also six feet under. She didn't know if they were wandering around the hospital as spirits watching her. She didn't know.
She also was a bit uneasy about her other sister... the one that popped up out of nowhere. Her mother had a child... when she was already alive. She didn't know how she felt about that. She already has... had... a sister.
So, she laid there, staring at the ceiling of the on call room. She felt herself doze.
She felt her phone go off in her pocket. She was being summoned to the pit. That was weird. She couldn't say she had ever heard that one ever before.
"Why am I being paged?" She spoke into her phone, irritated her nap had gotten cut short. Bailey was throwing everything at her. She was exhausted. She was ready to pull the 'doing work for the chief' card.
"Meredith, just believe that you want to see this for yourself." April's squeaky voice responded into the phone. She could hear the chaos of the pit in the background. "Get this girl up to CT stat!" She heard.
Meredith mumbled in agreement and lifted herself from the cot in the on-call room. She powerwalked to the elevator, waved at Alex, and got off on the ER floor. Hunt nearly ran her over pushing a cot into the elevator, and Stephanie was sitting behind the desk looking official. Where was April? She walked into one of the trauma rooms.
The red head stood above a patient that appeared to be a teenager girl with brown hair.
"What is it Kepner?" She asked, glancing at the patient and then back at April. Her usual composure was different now that she had come back from the war. It had changed her. Meredith's year away had changed her too, in a way. And for both of them, their problems had come rushing back with them. Jackson and April were clearly having problems, and Derek was still dead.
"Look at her!" April exasperated.
Meredith looked at her. She scanned her injuries. She was unresponsive, which was a bad sign. She had a gash on her forehead and lots of blood surrounding her lower extremities. Meredith also suspected that there was blood in the abdomen. However, the fact that she was unresponsive meant that her brain had most likely been compromised.
"This looks like a neuro and ortho job. Not a general one. You should have already taken her up to the OR."
April sighed. "Look at her like a person, not like a doctor."
It was then that Meredith saw what April was talking about. The girl's brown hair, the girl's eyes... it was like looking at her sister.
Her dead sister.
"Now, I know that might seem just a tad forward, but look at her right hand." Meredith made her way onto the girl's right side. She lifted her hand. It was a bit bruised, but in purple pen the words 'Dr. M Grey' were scribbled. She sighed.
She couldn't know for sure. It wasn't like those moments when you've been reunited with someone after a lifetime of being apart. She just felt something in her gut, it was almost like she had felt the first time she had met Zola. Even though she was the ever hesitant human that always had her doubts, she was completely sure. This was her dead sister's kid.
And that was the moment that her life changed.
...
Nobody knows where they might end up. Nobody knows what comes after life. What does death entail? Is it living in the clouds? Do you see the people you love again? Or do you fall asleep eternally in a pit of darkness? Nobody knows until they're dead. And once they're there, there is no going back. Do the dead watch over the living? Do they see their loved ones triumph and fall? Do these loved ones, your guardian angels, make sure you're safe? Or is simply the luck of the draw keeping you alive? Do the dead end up regretting everything? Every mistake? The chances they didn't take? Or does everything fall into place? Nobody knows.
"Mark!"
Mark opened his eyes. His wife was nowhere to be found. He closed his eyes.
"Daddddd." Ella moaned, throwing herself on top of him. "I want to do something fun today." Even without opening his eyes he could imagine the ball of red hair and Addison's eyes hovering above him. She may have never grown up on Earth, but she was growing up here. She was one of the shinies, the child angels.
Mark growled. He felt the dip of the bed, then a peck on his forehead. "Morning." At this point, he opened his eyes. Little Grey. Little Grey that had died right before he had, under a plane, without an arm. Animals had fought over her body. But here, she was the same Lexie he had fallen in love with. Pretty eyes, sweet smile, both arms, and no blood. They were happy. They were going to grow old together.
"Fine Ella, we will." He growled.
"Can we go see Derek?" She beamed.
Mark rolled his eyes. "Is there a day we don't see Derek?"
"His pretty eyes make me happy." She said, bouncing out of the room. "You two can do whatever you want as long as we'll go later, I'll go hang out with the other shinies to leave you with some, erm, quiet time."
Mark just laughed as Lexie laid beside him and just looked at him.
"Can you believe we've been dead for five years? Zola is in elementary school now. She's never going to remember me! Bailey and Ellis will never know me, and Mer won't show them a picture! Maybe when they're older, anyway," Lexie reflected.
"Where's Samuel?"
"Sleepin'." Lexie sighed, laying down next to him.
"Sofia is going through a rough patch. I honestly thought that Arizona and Callie were going to stick together. They were soulmates. What hurts is knowing that she won't remember me."
Lexie didn't hesitate. "I think they'll get together in the end... I mean, we did. If we can get together, so can they. They had a lot more to share than we did."
"We did, didn't we?" Mark laughed. "Well, should we do what Ella said? Doing whatever we want? I have a few ideas..."
"I will try to avoid bending your penis..." Lexie laughed. "But no promises."
...
After Ella had stared at Derek's hair for a good twenty minutes, she ran off to do angelic things. That left all of the adults hitting the bar for their drink of choice. Lexie was, of course, live streaming the happenings of her sister at Grey Sloan Memorial.
Lexie watched as Meredith walked into the pit and over to Kepner. She furrowed her brow. That wasn't possible. She hadn't even though about this ever happening.
Oh who was she kidding? She was waiting for the day that her very estranged daughter would find her way back to Meredith. Meredith was her family. She wanted Meredith to help her become a doctor and give her a home. After she had died, she had trusted that when the time was right, she would find her way back to them. Meredith would have hesitated initially, but Derek would have warmed her up to the idea.
Lexie heard a displeased grunt behind her and turned around to see her brother in law staring at the event before him.
"You didn't think this would happen, would you?"
Derek knew. Mark knew. They knew about this after they had died. She had never wanted to tell them while she was still alive. She didn't know how. She was ashamed that she hadn't fought for her in the first place. No, she let her get taken away. As bad as that made Thatcher and Susan sound, Susan was completely against the idea. She wanted to keep her. But what had Thatcher done? Made that impossible.
"I mean, there she is. There's my kid. I was seventeen years old. It was the last thing I wanted at the time, but I didn't even get to see her. I spent all of med school trying to find her, but to no avail."
"Poor Mer." Mark cut in. "She's going to go all dark and twisty on your daughter."
"So what do we do?" Ellis Grey asked, appearing at the bar. "Scotch please." She asked, looking at the bartender. She turned to Derek. "You left her, now you have to make sure she doesn't do what I did. My daughter is not going to slit her wrists and hope to die like I did. You make sure of that." She growled. "My daughter will not make the same mistakes I did... not if I can help it."
"There isn't much we can do. We can watch..." he sighed, knowing he was helpless in this matter.
Lexie turned to Ellis. "You're her guardian angel, doesn't that give you some sort of power in the situation? It's my daughter that's going to make her all sad about death and dying all over again."
It worked differently than most people thought. When someone died, they chose the one person they loved the most to watch over for all eternity, until they were reunited in the heavens. Ellis had picked Mer, because who else was she going to watch over?
That left Derek irritated. His first choice would have been Mer, so instead he decided on Ellis. His last daughter would never know him, and that broke his heart more than his death.
Lexie picked her daughter, except that proved to be difficult as she didn't know where or who she was. Nonetheless, she was under Lexie's protection. Mark had chosen Sofia, and George had picked Izzie, who had been battling cancer at the time. He had used his extraordinary measures to keep her from coding on the table. He was not too happy when she had left them, and he had watched as she had started her new life.
Ellis was a little irritated. "Who do you think saved her when she was attacked by the patient? Almost died giving birth to Bailey? Almost died in another plane accident? Those were extraordinary measures that kept her alive. I don't know if I have it in me. Too many bad things have happened to her. The carousel never stops turning."
Derek growled, "just because you died first, you took dibs on watching over my wife. Which is amazing, except for the fact that I can't protect her."
"She's my daughter! She's my daughter before she's your lover! So I'm sorry. I am going to do all I can to make sure that Meredith doesn't join us up here. She has to stay alive for Zola, and Bailey, and Ellis! She's not dying anytime soon! I will make sure of it."
"And you know what?" Lexie cut in, "She's gonna love my daughter! I'm telling you right now!"
Ellis, Derek, Mark, and George all stared back at her.
"...eventually." Lexie added.